Redlanders in service

The idea of a bus tour may call to mind maps of the stars' homes in Hollywood or vistas of Buckingham Palace or the Eiffel Tower from the top deck of a behemoth motor coach, but for people who have been fourth-graders in Redlands in recent years, a bus tour might evoke memories of a special field trip where they learned a lot about their town.

They will likely recall hollering their schools' names and hearing them echo back on campus at the University of Redlands, or lunching in Smiley Park - but they might not remember the name of the group that provided the tour: It was the Heritage Auxiliary of the Assistance League of Redlands, a community service group that looks for ways to tie Redlands' history to its present, and to keep the community aware of its rich past.

"We try to get to every fourth-grade class at every public and private school in town," said Auxiliary chairwoman Evelyn O'Prey, who has led a great many tours in her nine years on the committee. She is one of 32 active docents who work in pairs to lead the tours, she said.

The Heritage Auxiliary provides tours of historic Redlands for some 1,800 children every year from August to May, she said. They go out in school buses about 30 students at a time, plus teachers and sometimes parents.

A few days before each tour, O'Prey said, the docents visit classrooms with collections of what they call "realia" - objects people might have used in their daily lives 100 years ago.

"We take an old bread-making bowl - so well used that it has a hole in the bottom - and an orange picking bag, and an old-fashioned toaster, and a curling iron, and old-style milk bottles," O'Prey said.

"We have a pair of high-button ladies' shoes, with the button hook. That's a favorite with the girls."

Talking about how life was in the old days helps the children connect with the places and things docents will show them on the tour, O'Prey said, including the nation's first street lights and the site of the building where the Pledge of Allegiance was recited for the first time.

The four-hour tour shows the children historic neighborhoods and the last working citrus packing house in town. At A.K. Smiley Public Library, they learn how early Redlanders could distinguish between Alfred and Albert Smiley, twins who donated the library and its surrounding park.

"It was their watch fobs," O'Prey revealed. "One was square and the other was round."

Supporting the bus tours is the Auxiliary's annual spring bus tour for adults, "Treasures in Hidden Neighborhoods," said docent Norma Clark. That tour changes every year, she said, "because we keep finding new treasures to show people."

The grown-ups go out in the school district's smaller buses, because they are more comfortable for adults. Those tours last about 90 minutes.

"We pick and choose what to show people, because there are so many interesting places," Clark said. "You find out all kinds of information, and some of it is juicy."

Docent Lynn Lowry, who led a fourth-grade tour on Thursday, said she got interested in the Heritage Auxiliary when her children toured as fourth-graders. She joined the group about five years ago, she said.

"It's a good way to volunteer in the community," she said. "It's a lot of fun, but it doesn't take a lot of time. I had friends who were involved, and they kept telling me, `Come on, Lynn, you've got to do this.' "

For more information about the Heritage Auxiliary, contact the Assistance League of Redlands, 909-798-0436, or visit redlands.assistanceleague.org